Category: Новини

An advertising-technology billionaire has formally resigned his membership in The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints and rebuked the faith over social issues and LGBTQ rights in an unusual public move. 

Jeff T. Green has pledged to donate 90% of his estimated $5 billion advertising-technology wealth, starting with a donation to a LGBTQ-rights group in the state, the Salt Lake Tribune reported.

In an unusual public step, Green said in a Monday resignation letter to church President Russell M. Nelson that he hasn’t been active in the faith widely known as Mormon for more than a decade but wanted to make his departure official and remove his name from membership records. 

“I believe the Mormon church has hindered global progress in women’s rights, civil rights and racial equality, and LGBTQ+ rights,” he wrote. Eleven family members and a friend formally resigned along with him. He will donate $600,000 to the group Equality Utah.

The church didn’t immediately return a message from The Associated Press seeking comment Tuesday, but in recent years has shown a willingness to engage on LGBTQ rights that is unusual for a conservative faith. While it maintains its opposition to same-sex marriage, the faith didn’t block a 2019 ban on so-called conversion therapy in Utah and in November high-ranking leader Dallin Oaks said in a speech that religious rights and LGBTQ rights can coexist. 

Green, for his part, said most church members “are good people trying to do right,” but he also worries about the faith’s transparency around its history and finances.

Green, 44, now lives in Southern California. He is the CEO and chairman of The Trade Desk, an advertising technology firm he founded in 2009.

He also mentioned concerns about a $100 billion investment portfolio held by the faith. It was the subject of an Internal Revenue Service whistleblower complaint in 2019, from a former employee who charged the church had improperly built it up using member donations that are supposed to go to charitable causes.

Leaders have defended how the church uses and invests member donations, saying most is used for operational and humanitarian needs, but a portion is safeguarded to build a reserve for the future. The faith annually spends about $1 billion on humanitarian and welfare aid, leaders have said. 

The church has also come under criticism for conservative social positions. Women do not hold the priesthood in the faith, and Black men could not until the 1970s.

In recent years, though, the faith has worked with the NAACP and donated nearly $10 million for initiatives to help Black Americans. It has also worked with Equality Utah to pass a state LGBTQ nondiscrimination law, with religious exemptions.

Another prominent onetime Latter-day Saint sued the faith this year, accusing it of fraud and seeking to recover millions of dollars in contributions. James Huntsman is a member of one of Utah’s most prominent families and brother of a former governor. The suit was later tossed out. 

 
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The Africa Football Cup of Nations tournament is scheduled to begin January 9 at Olembe Stadium in Cameroon’s capital, Yaounde.

On Monday, Confederation of African Football President Patrice Motsepe visited the 60,000-seat stadium, which is still under construction less than three weeks before the opening match.

Motsepe says construction workers are improving on the stadium and he is optimistic Cameroon will be ready for the opener.  

“There is a huge commitment and a focus to make sure that some of those issues that are being put in place in the next few days, good progress will be made,” he said. “My message is to Africa and to the world that the people of Cameroon are ready to show the world the best of African Football and also the best of African hospitality. It is going to be a successful AFCON, so come January 9, there must be a kickoff.” 

Motsepe’s visit came amid persistent local media reports that Olembe Stadium would not be ready. 

 

Bulldozers dug and arranged roads at the stadium entrance on Tuesday, a day after Motsepe’s visit. Several dozen young people transported and planted trees, flowers and grass that officials say will beautify the facility. 

Among the workers is 35-year-old building construction engineer Luc Eloundou. Eloundou says he is not sure the entire parking lot of the stadium will be complete within a week as requested by the government of Cameroon. 

“Last month we were about 1,000 people here, but now I am seeing up to 300. Workers are not coming. Why? They work without money. Some borrow money to come and work but they don’t have their salaries. The work is much, even in more than a year we will not be able to finish the work,” he said.

Jean Fradique, technical director of the stadium, says 2,000 workers have been recruited to make sure that before a joint CAF/FIFA control mission visits, the stadium is ready for the opening match. 

Fradique says workers are arranging parking spaces for cars that will bring football fans, players and match officials to the stadium. He says the huge mobilization of over 2,000 workers and several hundred compactors and construction equipment within the past two months is indicative that Cameroon is bent on finalizing construction work within one week.

Stadium construction began in March 2017. The government said the facility would be ready for the 2020 AFCON. But in January 2020, the CAF postponed the tournament for a year, saying Cameroon was not ready. 

The CAF moved the tournament again in January 2021 because of the COVID-19 pandemic.

Local media in Cameroon say between COVID-19 and construction delays, the tournament may be postponed yet again. For now, the CAF says the tournament is on.
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Chinese tennis star Peng Shuai is denying that she wrote a social media post last month accusing a now-retired Communist Party official of sexually assaulting her. 

In a video posted Sunday on the website of the Singapore-based Chinese-language newspaper Lianhe Zaobao, Peng told the interviewer she has “never said or written anything accusing anyone of sexually assaulting me,” a point she said she needed “to emphasize…very clearly.”   

Peng said in the interview that her initial post on the social media site Weibo was “a private matter” and told the interviewer she was able to move about freely.   

The newspaper said the video was taken Sunday in Shanghai, where the 35-year-old Peng was attending a skiing competition. The video showed her standing alongside former National Basketball Association star Yao Ming and other Chinese sports figures. 

Peng, a former Olympian who won titles at Wimbledon and the French Open, said on November 2 that former Vice Premier Zhang Gaoli coerced her into sex before it evolved into an on-off consensual relationship. Her post was quickly deleted and she vanished from public view for several days.  She eventually appeared at a tennis event and spoke by video with Thomas Bach, president of the International Olympic Committee president, during which she said she was safe.   

Her disappearance sparked concern among some of the world’s top tennis players, including Naomi Osaka, Serena Williams, Billie Jean King and Novak Djokovic, and    

The Women’s Tennis Association suspended all of its sponsored tournaments in mainland China and Hong Kong.   

A Chinese state-run media outlet then released a statement it said was an email Peng had sent to WTA Chairman and CEO Steve Simon in which she denied the allegations and insisted she was not missing or unsafe, but just “resting at home, but Simon questioned the email’s legitimacy and called for an open investigation into Peng’s initial accusations.   

“We remain steadfast in our call for a full, fair and transparent investigation, without censorship, into her allegation of sexual assault,” the WTA said in a statement issued after Peng’s video was posted. 
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